According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, the United States has the largest prison population in the world. By current estimates, over two million inmates are incarcerated in U.S. prisons. In general, inmates that have been convicted of felony offenses serve longer sentences in prisons (e.g., federal or state prisons), whereas inmates that have been convicted of misdemeanors receive shorter sentences that are typically served in jails (e.g., county jail). In addition, upon being detained by authorities, an inmate may serve significant periods of time incarcerated in a local jail while awaiting release on bond and, in some cases, while awaiting trial. During all of these periods of incarceration, an inmate may have opportunities to communicate with the outside world.
By allowing inmates to communicate with friends and family while incarcerated, the justice system aims to facilitate their transition back into society upon release. Traditional visitation sessions provided by controlled-environment facilities include telephone calls and in-person visits. More recently, technological advances have allowed controlled-environment facilities to provide other types of visitation sessions, including video conferences, email and online chat sessions.
Voice communication services provided to residents of controlled-environment facilities typically limit residents to placing outbound calls to non-residents of the controlled-environment facility. Residents typically are not allowed to receive calls. In addition, residents typically have limited access to communication devices and this access may be provided only according to strict schedules maintained by each individual controlled-environment facility. In some scenarios, voice visitation sessions between a resident and a non-resident may be scheduled for a time when the resident will have access to a communication device and when the non-resident can receive the call. However, in many instances, voice communications between a resident and non-resident depend on a non-resident being able to receive the resident's call at the time the resident afforded the opportunity to initiate a voice visitation session. Consequently, in many instances, a resident's voice visitation request is unsuccessful due to the inability of the non-resident to accept the resident's call request. This can be especially problematic in situations where an individual has been detained and needs to inform friends and family of the situation in order to arrange bail and to relay other important information.